


to take the road less traveled by

by bluejayblueskies



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but still spooky!), (with a secret monster twist!), Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Aromantic Sasha James, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Librarian Jon, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Prince Tim, Princes & Princesses, Princess Sasha - Freeform, Selkie Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejayblueskies/pseuds/bluejayblueskies
Summary: Once upon a time, in a land divided by water and mountains and the hands of men into fourteen kingdoms, there was a prince. His name was Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker, ruling over the land of the fae, and though he was neither fae nor human, he would do as a prince should, even if his heart lay beyond, in the kingdom of ever-watching eyes.So when his father commanded him to venture beyond the land of the fae and into the spiraling forests of the Twisting Deceit, wherein lay a tower so high it was thought to touch the stars, and rescue a trapped princess from that tower, Prince Timothy donned the lightest of leather armors, plucked his bow from the armory, and left his kingdom behind in the glow of the rising sun.---Of Prince Timothy, his lovers, and a princess trapped in a tower.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 64
Collections: Aspec Archives Week





	to take the road less traveled by

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! This was technically written for day 2 of tma mspec week for the prompt _fantasy_ , but it got quite out of my control and so here it is now, on the last day of the week!
> 
> Content warnings for some canon-typical descriptions of body horror and unreality/dissociation, though nothing graphic

Once upon a time, in a land divided by water and mountains and the hands of men into fourteen kingdoms, there was a prince. His name was Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker, and he ruled over the land of shifting faces and unspoken names and beautiful creatures that were not to be trusted. Some said he was part fae, that his family had stolen the throne centuries ago from the humans and now wore their faces like smiling terra-cotta masks. Others said that the House of Stoker only ruled over the fae to keep them contained, and that without their steady hand the entire world would be claimed by the Uncanny Court, just as Prince Danny had been so many years ago.

Tim was neither fae nor human. Though he  _ was _ a prince. And so he would do as a prince should, even if his heart lay beyond, in the kingdom of ever-watching eyes. So when his father commanded him to venture beyond the land of the fae and into the spiraling forests of the Twisting Deceit, wherein lay a tower so high it was thought to touch the stars, and rescue a trapped princess from that tower, Prince Timothy donned the lightest of leather armors, plucked his bow from the armory, and left his kingdom behind in the glow of the rising sun. Into his satchel was tucked a compass that would not point North, and as Prince Timothy and his steed approached the edge of their kingdom, he retrieved the object and studied its face, watching the needle within twitch back and forth before settling on its destination with a sigh.

It would point to the tower, and nothing else, as was its design. Tim had asked only once how he was meant to return without guidance.

He had not liked the answer.

The compass led him through bramble thickets that pulled at his trousers and across streams that burbled and laughed over pointed rocks and under low-hanging tree canopies that brushed across the crown of his head like curious fingers. The trees twisted and curled around him as he ventured further in, folding in on themselves and coming out the other side changed, something sharper and darker in their leaves. The sun had long-since set, but Tim did not dare halt his course, for he knew deep down that the forest would take him in his moment of vulnerability and would twist him, too, until the thing that came out the other side was sharper and darker as well. So he set his jaw and gripped the reins tightly and pretended that he did not see the shifting figures that flickered just at the edges of his vision. 

It was some time later _ — _ for Prince Timothy could not say if he had been traveling through the forest for hours or for days _ — _ when the compass led him across a stream, through a mossy crack in a cluster of boulders, and to a door. The door was just a door, pale yellow and flaking bits of paint onto the forest floor below. It had moss embedded in its cracks, vines trailing up where its hinges should have been, and a singular brassy doorknob that contained well-worn grooves where one’s fingers might sit. It was a door that had been opened many times before and that knew it would be so again.

It wanted Tim to open it. 

He did not.

Instead, Prince Timothy dismounted his horse, pulled down his bedroll and a few provisions, and began to make camp. The compass needle did not twitch away from the door as Tim busied himself with the fire; the sticks he collected from the outskirts of the clearing screamed as he set them alight, but quieted soon enough.

The smoke smelled of headaches and drunken laughter and the certainty that one has been lost to a sickness of their own mind, never to return. Tim placed a strip of cloth over his nose and mouth and ignored the familiar flickering faces that formed in the fire’s embers. 

And through it all, the door sat, closed, attached to nothing and with nothing behind it yet concealing something in plain sight, a deceit all of its own. Its yellow was that of sickness, Tim thought, then cast the idea away. This was not a place of rot and filth. The decay here was rooted in the mind, built on subtly. And for that, it was much, much more dangerous.

Prince Timothy laid back on his bedroll, let the fire burn down to smoldering embers, and shut his eyes. And there the door still sat, ever patient. It would wait just a bit longer, Prince Timothy thought, before slipping into uneasy dreams of false smiles and half-truths.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a kingdom filled with knowledge and devoid of secrets and privacy, there was a princess. Her name was Princess Sasha of the Magnus Court, and she did not want to be a princess. For princesses were meant to sit far above the rest of the populace, reading the same books as her mother and her mother’s mother and a long line of princesses before her, and she did not want that. Her curiosity grew like vines, spreading through the cracks in her world, and she longed to follow their tendrils into the butcher shops that smelled of sweet meats and into the catacombs that latticed below the cobblestone streets and through the thick pine forest that brushed against the castle with eager branches. 

But her regent Jonah pulled her back when she would stray too far, warning her of the dangers that lay beyond the walls of the castle and the village beneath it. He spoke of melting monsters made of wax and inky black vines that dragged one deep underground and wolves that stood on two legs and smiled with crimson teeth. It was safer, he told her as she sat amidst her books, to watch these things from afar, to learn from them and to observe but never to engage with them directly. 

She knew of the dangers. Her parents had been entranced by the sweet trilling of a panpipe and had followed it into a stone cave, never to return. 

She longed to leave all the same.

And so one day, Princess Sasha donned the costume of a servant she’d stolen from their quarters several moons prior, slipped into the streets of the village with rucksack in hand, and vanished between the trunks of the pine trees.

Never to return.

* * *

Prince Timothy awoke to laughter that was backward and a creature that could not hold the eye for more than a few seconds stood next to the pale yellow door.

“Hello, little prince,” it said with a lilting smile, something that reminded Tim of children dancing and dancing until their soles bled a sticky crimson. “Are you well-rested?”

Tim did not answer. Instead, he stood, hand coming to rest lightly against the compass still tucked against his waist. It was no use as a weapon, but no weapon would do this creature harm in any case. Tim ran his thumb over the face of the compass, feeling the imperfections in the glass catch against his skin _ — _ a reminder of his own physicality.

“Hm,” the creature said. “How rude, to come all this way and not to at least introduce yourself to the being who will bring you to what you seek?”

“You know who I am,” Prince Timothy said, and nothing more.

The creature did not seem satisfied by this, as much as anything that is not anything can express something so human as satisfaction. Still, it laid one mangled, bony hand on the door and cast it open, revealing within a twisting path of mirrors and colors that Tim’s mind could not quite grasp, finding the image lost even as he gazed upon it. “Fine,” it said, its displeasure palpable on Tim’s tongue, sticky and bitter. “Then come, Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker. You know the price?”

Tim nodded and withdrew the parcel from the satchel of his horse.

The creature reached, and reached, and reached, and when one long, spindly finger met the paper, it tore with a sound not unlike that of severed flesh. Prince Timothy did not move as it extracted from within a mask, made of chestnut brown and carved into a smile wide and wild with precocious joy. It had once been in the possession of a man of talent, an entertainer and jester who danced in the streets for a pretty penny and drank the night away at taverns and brothels. He had acquired the mask for the purpose of a court performance and had placed it upon his face before the king. When his hands had finally managed to wrench the cursed thing away, it had taken his face with it, leaving only a blank expanse of skin that, even without a mouth, still knew how to scream.

Tim thought the creature might place the artifact on its own face _ — _ if there were even a face to steal at all — but it only grinned, a sight that sent a white-hot flash of pain through Tim’s mind, and said, “This will be acceptable. Do try to stay on course as you pass through me. We wouldn’t want you straying from the path.”

Prince Timothy did not respond. He gathered his supplies, gripped the compass tight, and led his steed through the cracked yellow door into the tunnels that lay beyond. The creature’s laughter chased him through every turn, the mirrors showing reflections of realities that were  _ better, so much better, just come a bit closer, that’s it, just a bit closer. _

The compass burned in his hand. Prince Timothy did not stray from the path.

Around the fifty-seventh right corner, a voice that reflected Tim’s own in cadence beckoned him, offering him answers to his past, to the whereabouts of his brother, to the freedom he so desperately sought. It filled his mind until it may as well have been his own thoughts, whispering that he may as well come a bit closer,  _ we have the answers right here, if you’ll just come a bit closer. _

The compass was like ice, like frostbite deep-set in his skin. Prince Timothy did not stray from the path.

An invisible figure gripped his hand with surprising force and said in a voice soft and pleading, “Tim, don’t do this.”

Another voice, low and bitter, said, “Don’t leave us behind, Tim. You always leave us behind.”

_ When are you coming back, _ the voices said.  _ Why have you left us. Why don’t you love us. We don’t understand. Please, just come to us. Come a bit closer. Please, Tim, we love you, please just come a bit closer. _

The compass grew wet as tears dripped from Tim’s nose and puddled upon his skin. He did not stray from the path.

And when the door finally opened once more into a forest of pine, through which could be seen the barest hint of mossy stone that climbed toward the sky, Prince Timothy did not look back as the creature and the voices of his brother and his lovers laughed and laughed and laughed, until the door was firmly shut and the forest became silent once more.

The compass was heavy in his hand. Prince Timothy did not stray from the path.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a house in the outskirts of a village ruled by the Magnus Court, there was a man. His name was Jonathan Sims — though he went by Jon — and he had no noble title of which to speak. Orphaned at a young age, his grandmother — head librarian for the Magnus Court — taught him to read and write and instilled within him a curiosity and a hunger for knowledge that would never cease. He took charge of the library when his grandmother passed and spent his days reading, never any two books the same, casting those that did not satisfy the itch in the back of his mind away. 

As the years passed, though, the number of books that could sate him dwindled, and he found himself restless, spending many sleepless nights combing the shelves of his library for something new that he may have overlooked. He found none, and restlessness gave way to a feverish sickness that could not be chased away by a cold compress or a cup of willow bark tea. So one morning, he packed enough provisions for a week, pulled his boots on with shaking hands, and set off in search of a story that could feed the curiosity that hungered within him.

And a story he did find, in the end. Though it was not a story of paper and ink, carefully inscribed by a learned hand. Instead, it was drawn from bowed lips with naught but a question, eyes white and wide but their words even and smooth. They spoke of a woman who had come to town, her eyes sharp and cunning but her manners impeccably polite. She remained so even as she knocked on their door, smiled at them, and requested that they take up the butcher knife in their kitchen and murder their own son while he slept.

They had done so. They cried silent, shaking tears as they told Jon how they had stared at the blood staining the knife after the deed had been done, how their hands had become their hands once again and how they had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until the skin had been rubbed raw, but that the blood still remained beneath their nails no matter how hard they tried to rid themself of it. 

The woman had vanished, they said. Like she had never come at all. And so they had fled their village, never to return.

They finished speaking, and like a tether snapped, they stumbled back, calling Jon such names as  _ cruel _ and  _ evil _ and  _ monster. _ Jon watched them run away, his stomach rolling with such nausea he felt he might be sick if the nourishment filling his stomach had been something that could be regurgitated. Instead, he turned — away from his village, away from whence he had come, away from where he had been traveling to — and made his way deeper into the forest, where the trees had teeth and tongues that whispered gentle words against the skin of travelers, beckoning them closer and closer still.

It was a place for monsters, Jon thought bitterly. It was a place for him.

* * *

The tower was tall, though it did not brush the stars. Of that Prince Timothy was certain, because he now stood at the top and he could still look upward at the sky above, letting his eyes trace out familiar constellations. Twin moons hung above the horizon, curved into one another like lovers, which Tim thought appropriate (if only in such a way that wine was appropriate at the wedding of a drunkard). Which is to say that it was not appropriate at all; only expected.

Tim allowed himself to gaze at the sky a moment more before bracing one hand on the wooden door before him, the other gripping the compass with a bruising force, and pushing it open.

Within the tower, there were three things.

One, a shining silver mirror, hung along one wall, its surface filled with swirling smoke.

Two, a chest of hickory, fastened shut with bronze ribbons and small enough that anything it may have contained would fit into the palm of Tim’s hand with ease.

Three, a woman, sat in the center of the room with eyes affixed to the mirror. She did not face Tim as he entered. 

“Hello,” Prince Timothy said, a greeting born of surprise and wariness in equal measure. It was not befitting of a princess, to sit in such a manner, but as Tim watched the unnatural stillness of the woman’s body and saw the glazed-over whites of her eyes, he was beginning to think that his presence had gone entirely unnoticed.

Prince Timothy had been called many things over the course of his lifetime. Brave, by his brother, as well as stubborn and kind to a fault. Charismatic, by his mother, and quick-witted, by his father. (Excellent in bed by the people of the village, among which Tim did not discriminate in his affections.) Patient was not one of them. And neither was cautious. 

So, Prince Timothy drew his bow, took careful aim, and sent his arrow flying true.

The mirror shattered with a hissing scream, and fog filled the room in moments, snaking into Tim’s lungs and wrapping icy fingers about his wrists and throat. He might have yelled, had he had any air with which to do so; instead, he fought the desire to lose himself to the madness that beckoned from within the mist in familiar voices and took a step forward, and then another.

When his hands closed around the chest, the metal was searing hot against his fingers, and he nearly dropped it. His fingers found the latch and opened it with quick desperation.

Within the chest lay a single monocle, gold-rimmed and cracked down the center.

Tim didn’t hesitate. He lifted the item to his eye and looked through the glass.

The compass sat uselessly in his pocket. But Prince Timothy knew the path once more. So he stepped through the fog and found the hand of the princess who now stood enshrouded in mist with eyes hard with cold fury but dulled by confusion and fear.

Her hand was chilled, and it stiffened beneath his. “Who are you?” she snapped with bitter terror. “Why can’t I see you? Why have you brought me here?”

“I am Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker,” Tim said honestly, enjoying how the fog recoiled slightly at the raw truth of it. “And I know the way out.”

* * *

Once upon a time, in a kingdom that could almost not be called a kingdom at all for how few people lived within its borders, there was a man. His name was Martin Blackwood, though to call him a man would not be quite accurate. When he walked upon land he assumed the form of a man, peddling clay pottery and smoked fish to the people of the seaside village known as Tundra. It was a small settlement by any other standards, but in the kingdom of icy fog and quiet separation it was quite large indeed, and thus it housed the castle of the Lukas Court, over which King Peter reigned. (Though nobody had ever recalled seeing the man himself.) Martin acted just as anybody else in the village did: he kept to himself, made little more than idle small talk with his customers, and reveled in the ease of secrecy that came with anonymity. 

For when Martin did not walk upon land, he wore a coat of silver and black and embraced the salt-water sea that had been his birthplace, but that over the years felt less and less like a home. He was not the only one to live such a life, certainly. But a fear of being kept, of false love from another like his mother had fallen victim to, sat heavy in his chest, so he kept his coat close and never strayed too far from the sea.

Until, one day, he found himself in the thick cedar forest that abutted the coast, running and running and running with his coat hastily tucked away in a backpack and his shop lying abandoned, doors ripped open and pottery dashed upon the ground below. Martin had imagined, many times, what it would feel like to flee his home, to leave the sea behind. He thought he may be run out for what he was, or that his village would become sparse enough to fall apart entirely.

This had been none of those things. This had been creatures with too many bones and not enough skin, built and rebuilt into something monstrous and powerful. They had torn through walls like paper, through the skin of the people they encountered like paper as well, pulling free bones and sinew that they plastered to themselves in a collage of rust-colored meat and gore that made Martin promptly sick, his feet stumbling slightly as he retched into the brush. 

His village was gone. And the sea was no longer his home.

So Martin Blackwood ran, and he ran, and he did not look back.

* * *

Far into the woods, where the sun barely broke the canopies of the trees and birds didn’t dare to sing their song, there lay a tower. It was said to touch the stars, and by doing so to contain the wisdom of the heavens. Princess Sasha had heard tell of such a tower, and she knew that the one standing before her must be the very same, hewn from mossy stone and with a crumbling staircase spiraling along the outside. She placed a hand upon the railing and found it solid; the stairs bore her weight with ease as she ascended them, the promise of something unknown guiding her path to the very top. 

Curiosity could be a dangerous thing, Jonah had always warned her, when not kept to the pages of well-worn tomes. 

Still, her hand did not falter as she lay it upon the door at the top of the tower and pushed it open. It welcomed her with open arms, folding beneath her palm with a sigh and revealing within a room that contained naught but a mirror on the wall, ringed in silver, and a small chest sat on a table next to it.

It did not look like a place of infinite wisdom, Princess Sasha thought as she entered the room and inspected it with a wary eye. It looked rather like all abandoned buildings did in the forest: like it contained a secret, one very old and very dangerous, but only a single one all the same.

Satisfied that she had seen all that the rest of the room had to offer, Sasha turned her gaze upon the mirror. It reflected back her visage — cheeks streaked with sweat and mud, hair tangled from many days’ journey, tears in the knees of her trousers from a nasty fall two days prior — but the longer Sasha gazed upon it, the less she recognized it. Her eyes became those of a stranger, her smile just a bit too wide (though she hadn’t remembered smiling at all), her face a few centimeters too long.

There was something in that mirror. Something that was her, but wasn’t. And Sasha needed to figure out what it was. She needed to  _ know _ it.

She sat in the middle of the room, beneath the highest point of the ceiling, locked eyes with the thing that was not Sasha, and did not blink. And when the fog began to roll in around her, whispering distorted truths and almost-lies in voices that she thought she should recognize, it wrapped lovingly around the thing that was not Sasha’s legs and arms and wrists and ankles and held her tightly.

And so Princess Sasha sat and stared, unblinking, as the sun rose and set and rose once more. Watching, frozen within time and a trap of her own design, and waiting for answers that would never come.

* * *

The sun had begun to set on the forest of the Twisting Deceit, and Prince Timothy and Princess Sasha did not let their steps falter as they continued through the trees, ignoring the way that the darkness began to call to them in grasping, pleading voices, begging for help and salvation and turning vicious when they went unanswered.

“I do not like this place,” Princess Sasha said. Her eyes were clear and sharp now, rid of the fog that had once consumed him, and her hand may have been warm but she had made no effort to place it within Tim’s after he had led them from the tower, and he would not impose himself upon her. “And you are sure this is the correct path?”

Prince Timothy was not sure. He held the monocle to his eye, feeling the clarity of sight and of mind it granted him, but the certainty in their journey had left him the further they strayed from the tower. Still, he did not want to worry the woman he had just pulled free from the clutches of  _ Es Mentiras _ with such things — it would not be the way of a prince, after all, to show weakness in times of difficulty — so he said, “I am sure. I said I know the way, did I not?”

Princess Sasha gave him a look that might have leveled a normal man. “That you did. But I have learned not to trust the words that strangers give me, no matter how princely and heroic they claim to be.”

“Claim to be?” Prince Timothy said, his voice thick with disbelief. “My lady, do my actions not speak loudly enough for you to believe that I have been sent to rescue you? For certainly you would still be sat in that tower had my arrow not flown true and my wit been intact. A braver feat I could not name.”

Princess Sasha made a sound that was not unlike that of the nicker of Tim’s steed. “Cocky. Is humility not taught within the royal courts of the House of Stoker anymore?”

“It is,” Tim said, his mouth curled into a smile. “But I choose my own path, princess.”

Princess Sasha’s forehead fell into a creased frown. “Please,” she said, her voice subdued once again. “Just Sasha is preferred.”

“Then you may call me Tim,” Tim said, for he was nothing but adaptable.

“Tim,” Sasha said, as if trying the weight of the word out in her mouth and finding that she rather liked it. “As unorthodox as our first encounter was, it is nice to meet you. Formally, that is.”

“And the same to you,” Tim said with a distinctly un-princely smile.

They walked for a few minutes more, the chatter of the trees filling the silence in a way that itched at Tim’s skin. He could not understand how anyone, man or monster or the things in between, could stand to live in such a place, that twisted a mind until there was nothing left of the original, no remaining semblance of the self. Then, he thought of the fae and the stolen skins they wore like cloaks bathed in blood, and he cast such thoughts from his mind. Better for him not to question the land through which he traveled and simply depart from it with quick expediency.

Should he be able to once again find the path, that is. 

(He knew of only one way for sure to escape  _ Es Mentiras. _ And he was not keen to use it.)

“Tim,” Sasha said, shattering the silence between them like glass. “May I ask you something?”

“Anything you desire,” Tim said.

With a short, clipped laugh, Sasha said, “It is in fact on the topic of desire.” She fell silent again for a moment, and Tim spared her a single glance. Her lips were pressed tight with worry, and her hand had found the satchel at her belt which she was twisting back and forth with nervous agitation. At length, she continued, bluntly, “Do you desire my hand in marriage?”

Tim could not help himself; he laughed, a sound born of surprise and too harsh. “My deepest apologies,” he said quickly, once he had quelled the shocked amusement bubbling up from deep within. “That was quite disrespectful of me. I have just never been…  _ proposed _ to in such a short period of time before. I believe that must be some sort of record.”

Sasha’s cheeks were aflame with red, and she shook her head so quickly Tim feared it might rip from her shoulders entirely. “I do  _ not _ wish to be wedded with you,” she said, clipped and forceful. “I only wanted to know if  _ you _ wished to be wedded with  _ me. _ ” Then, more uncertainly: “It  _ is _ customary in your land, is it not? To take a damsel’s hand in marriage should you rescue her?”

Tim was almost certain that this was what was expected of him. He was even more certain that this was not something that he wanted in the slightest. 

“Perhaps,” he said, guiding his steed around a tree and watching his step over the roots below. “But my heart lies with another. With two others, to be more precise. And while I do find you very beautiful, Sasha, and would likely find you a suitable partner, I do not wish to leave them behind.” Tim paused, before adding hesitantly, “Though perhaps if you were so inclined, I would not be…  _ opposed _ to introducing you to my partners in a…  _ romantic  _ capacity.”

A giggle slipped free from Sasha, and she clapped it back inside with a hand over her lips. “Apologies,” she said from behind the webbing of her fingers. “You do have such a way with words, do you not?”

“‘Tis one of my many charms.”

Fondly, Sasha said, “Quite.” She paused a moment, then said, “I meant what I said, though, that I do not wish to be wedded to you. Or to anybody. Matters of the heart, they do not appeal to me. I do not look upon a man and desire his lips, or upon a woman and desire her breasts. To love another in the way of marriage — it has never made itself understood to me.” Sasha looked at the ground, her boots scuffed from the dirt below. “But I do not desire to be alone, either. So I feel as though I may have no other choice than to one day bind myself to another.”

Tim looked forward, into the twisting wood ahead and the path that was now dark and cold and forgotten. “I have known you only briefly,” he said, “but I would not have you be alone. So you may accompany me as long as you desire, and I shall mention marriage no more. And I will have your presence in any way that you desire to give it to me, and I will treasure every moment of it.”

Sasha cast her eyes sideways, and Tim felt their weight on his face like the gentle pressure of fingers against his cheekbones. “Is that the princely thing to do?” she said quietly, like any louder would break the woods around them and they would be consumed entirely.

Tim smiled then, a warm, unfettered thing that seemed to chase away the dark and whispered words around him and settle the twisting in his stomach that told him that soon, he would have to make a choice he did not want to have to make. “No,” he said. “It is not. But it is the right thing to do. And that, I believe, is enough.”

“Quite,” Sasha said, turning her gaze ahead once more.

And through the woods they continued to walk.

* * *

It was when Jon met the man who smelled of the sea that he remembered what it was like to be human. 

His story had come easily enough — a town ravaged by creatures of viscera and bone, chased from his home by the sea, pelt tucked protectively to his side as he ran. Jon had not meant to ask. He had not meant to stumble upon the man in the woods, stood beneath a stony overhang as rain poured from the heavens in droves; he had simply ducked for shelter, his eyes cast down lest they be filled with water. 

He’d looked up and seen the man, stood there and staring at him with black eyes wide with shock. He had been hungry. So, so hungry. And the man had had a story.

So he’d asked. And he’d allowed the story to sate him, as so many others had, because to deny it would mean death, and Jon had never been a brave enough man to stare death in the eye without blinking.

The rain did not abate, and the man who smelled of salt was quiet once he had finished, his face drawn white and stricken from the horrors that had just slipped free from his tongue. For a very long moment, neither of them spoke, content to let the drumming of rain fill the silence between them. Then, the man opened his mouth and said, in a voice unsteady and quiet, “My name is Martin Blackwood.”

Jon stared at the man. He was looking at Jon now, and if Jon were not a wiser man, he might have called the man’s expression  _ friendly. _ “Pardon?” Jon said.

The man — Martin — extended his hand in the space between them. “My name. It’s Martin. I should think it only fair to give you my name, as I have given you the rest of myself already.”

Jon’s cheeks filled with an uncomfortable heat, and he looked away. He did not take Martin’s hand. “I am sorry,” he said curtly, because he knew that his words did not matter — not when he was so adept at stealing the words of others. “I will take my leave as soon as the rain ceases and you may never think of me again.”

“And why would I want that?”

Surprise dragged Jon’s gaze back to Martin, who still had his hand outstretched. It shook slightly, but Martin’s face showed genuine confusion, only the barest remnants of fear left lingering in the corners of his eyes. “What?” Jon said, for what else was there to say?

Martin looked at the rough-hewn stone beneath their feet, then back up at Jon. “I have seen much cruelty,” he said, “from the hands of man and monster alike. There are many out there who would seek nothing more than to own me, as they have done to so many of my kind. There are others who would hunt all like me, or who would kill in senseless acts of violence, or who would simply fall victim to what they were and not care enough to resist. So why should I not extend a hand to kindness?”

“But I am not kind,” Jon said quietly, shamefully. “Have you that short a memory as to forget that so few minutes ago, I pulled from you the horrors of your past? That I did not care as to your desires or wants, that I simply took without remorse?”

Martin did not drop his hand. “Am I mistaken, then, in the guilt I see in your eyes?”

Jon opened his mouth. And found that he could not answer.

“A cruel man does not feel guilt when his actions hurt others,” Martin said after a moment. “And a desperate man may do what he must in order to survive.”

“And if surviving is cruelty?” Jon said, barely more than a whisper. “If one’s very existence causes pain, is it not cruel to keep living?”

Martin did not drop his hand. Instead, he moved it forward until it rested against Jon’s wrist, drawing a gasp like a flutter of hummingbird wings from Jon’s throat. And he said, in a voice so gentle it ached, “We do not deserve to die for what we are.”

Something within Jon shifted and cracked, and he began to cry, sharp, heaving sobs that felt as if they might tear him apart. And he did not resist when Martin wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, whispering a litany of  _ that’s it, it’s all right, it’s okay _ s that trickled down upon him like rain and tasted just as bittersweet.

* * *

Were one to ask Prince Timothy if he was happy with who he was, his answer would be yes with only the barest sliver of hesitation. For he was strong and he was brave, and he knew that his heart, though capable of bitter hurt and harbored anger, would keep him true and just when the need was greatest. Yet that sliver remained, and through it seeped the faintest breath of a secret that he had been keeping before he even knew what it meant.

For Prince Timothy was neither fae nor human, neither selkie nor merfolk, neither phoenix nor vampire. He could not transform himself into the form of a beast, but nor could he claim to be the human he resembled.

For, should he choose to do so, Prince Timothy could see  _ everything. _

“You’re a lynx,” Sasha said, her voice hushed with awe, though Tim had not yet named the creature that he understood himself to be. “I did not know that they existed beyond the pages of a book.”

“And yet here I am,” Tim said, a bit snappishly. He was tired, many days of travel without proper rest weighing upon him heavily. The edge of the forest was no closer than when they had begun, the path thoroughly lost, and the words of his father had begun to echo in his ears.

_ When the compass can help you no more, you must simply rely on what you are. But do not let your sight blind you to the dangers of embracing it. _

The tail of a kitsune was rare; it could fetch a large fortune on the black market. The scales of a dragon were even more so, for they lived far off in the mountains and rarely left the vast open space of the sky and clouds. But the eyes of a lynx, through which one could see all that lay before them, foresee the future ahead, and learn the secrets that lay behind a still tongue?

They remained nothing but a story, told around a hearth to children. For to the public eye, lynxes did not exist. And the House of Stoker would ensure that it remained so.

And yet Sasha marked the third outside of family who knew of Tim’s true nature. Though as he watched her and listened to her speak of the myth of the lynx and her fascination and reverence toward what he was, he found that he could not bring himself to regret it.

“Perhaps,” Tim said, when Sasha took enough space within which to breath, “we may continue this conversation in a place much saner than this one?”

_ Don’t go, _ the trees whispered.  _ Stay. You will not like what lies beyond. _

Sasha shivered, in the manner of one deeply uncomfortable, and said, “That may be best.”

And so Prince Timothy closed his eyes and dredged from within himself a being he had spent so long hiding away, in fear at first and then out of habit, when it became easier to shut away his sight and see the world plainly. He felt Sasha’s hand in his, warm and smooth, and the reins of his steed in the other, the leather cutting against his palm. For the briefest of moments, he felt the hands of others: cool and broad against his cheeks, lips smelling of salt and tasting of brine, and slim and scarred, folding Tim’s hand between them and laying a kiss most gentle across his knuckles.

Tim opened his eyes and Knew them to be alight with a bright, blinding gold, like shining coins or rising sunlight. And he could See the world laid bare before him, every root and curling leaf and polished stone held in his mind so carefully, as if they might break.

He would see his lovers again. This he Saw as well, a thought that slipped in like oil amongst the gentle waves of knowledge that lapped at his mind. And Sasha would see them as well, and she would come to love them in a way that lacked romance but that did not lack intensity nor devotion, and they would love her in return in a mirror of her affections.

It was a future dusted with peace and pleasure, and Tim gripped Sasha’s hand with such fervor he thought he might crush the delicate bones within.

“I Know the way,” he said, the path stretching before him in glittering gold. “Come. Let us go home.”

* * *

Martin had known Jon for eleven moons (and had been his partner in romance and affection for three) when they first met Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker.

Martin did not like the forests ruled by the Uncanny Court. When he expressed his displeasure to the common ear, he claimed it to be a discomfort with strangeness, a natural aversion to faces that shifted and had no names to which to ascribe them. But to Jon, sitting by the fire at night ,  he felt safe within himself enough to admit that for someone who carried his pelt in a bag beside him, creatures who delighted in stealing the skin of others terrified him greatly.

Jon ran his hand down the side of Martin’s pelt as Martin spoke, wrapped about both their shoulders and warming them as the cool of the night began to settle upon the land. “I can protect us,” Jon said quietly, kindly, with a confidence that Martin had just begun to discover lay within him but which Martin adored greatly. “They cannot hide from me.”

And so into the forests they went. For Jon had business with the Uncanny Court — a business which culminated, as many of their ventures did, with Martin wrapping Jon in his pelt and tending to whatever wounds he had incurred.

“You might consider taking better care of yourself,” Martin said with a casualness that was not felt in his heart as he wrapped Jon’s wrists with cotton cloth. “We cannot build a library without a librarian to oversee it, after all.” Martin’s levity fell flat and heavy. With more sorrow to his tone, he said, “I do not wish to see you hurt, Jon. I wish you would not make me see you hurt.”

“I know,” Jon said, as he always did. And he said nothing more as Martin continued to work.

For Jon had allowed Martin’s careful persuasion to guide him back to his village within the Magnus Court and to the library which he had made his home for so long. Another had taken charge of the books in his absence, a woman with curling hair and cheeks like ripe apples who called herself Rosie; and so did she still care for the books in their steed, a collection that grew with every acquired tome of knowledge that Jon was so keen to bleed and suffer for. Martin wished he did not understand the way that his love would sacrifice himself for his stories, scrawled upon a parchment or drawn from quivering lips. But he could still recall the scent of the sea, the way it beckoned him home, and the way he ignored the stinging pull of salt and brine against his soul with every moment. And so he understood, in his own way, the sacrifices made for that which you love more than any pain or hardship.

It was some time later, with Jon’s wrists wrapped tight and his body curved into Martin’s side, that Jon went stiff and said, in a hushed tone, “There is someone coming.”

And before Martin could think to speak or bring himself to action, Jon continued, “And he has a story within him that I would very much like to hear.”

“Perhaps we should take our leave?” Martin said, nerves setting his voice alight with a tremor that he knew to be audible. He had not yet encountered one of the fae, and he did not care to do so in the haze of twilight. 

Jon pulled away, nestled the pelt against Martin’s side, and stood, facing into the shadows of the woods with a hard set to his face that Martin loved and dreaded in equal measure. “We are in no danger here, Martin,” he said, his chin lifted high and jaw set firm. “It is the duty of a prince to keep those within his borders safe, after all. Even if they should be travelers such as ourselves.”

“A prince?” Martin said.

And then from the trees emerged a man, clothed in a tunic of vibrant red and gold and with one hand grasping a whip-willow bow in a way that could just as easily have been nonchalance as it could have been wariness. Martin stood, clutching his pelt tightly to him — for it was too late to tuck it away, it had been seen, he could not hide it away — and tried not to allow nerves to quicken his breaths.

“You are quite a far way from the palace,” Jon said, his words blunt in a way that Martin was sure was not befitting a prince. From the way that the man’s eyebrows rose considerably, he figured himself to be correct.

“I do believe I am free to wander all regions of my kingdom, am I not?” the man said, his voice light and unthreatening.

“Certainly,” Jon said, “though I do wonder if it should relate to the gathering of the Uncanny Court not half a league from where we stand. Disbanded by now, of course. They never do stay in one place for long.”

The man’s eyes grew hard, but in a way that belied frustration more than fury. “And what are  _ you _ doing in such close proximity to a meeting of the fae?” he said with no small amount of bite in his voice.

“They had something I desired,” Jon said, and from his satchel he withdrew a small blue tome, embossed with shining metal and written in a language that Martin could not hope to decipher. 

The man took a step closer and examined the book with furrowed brow. “A lovely item,” he said finally, placing his eyes upon Jon’s face with curiosity plain and cutting. “What was its price, then? The fae do not allow their possessions to slip from their grasp so easily.”

Jon held up a wrist, wrapped in cloth now stained a rusty red. Martin would need to change them soon. “The court does not always desire the skin of another in its entirety,” he said with only the slightest tremor in his voice. “Sometimes, a small section will suffice.”

The man’s face paled, and he said, “You allow them to own a piece of you? Knowing what it will do?”

“They can pretend to be me,” Jon said, letting his hand fall back to his side, “but they cannot replace me. I find that that is enough for me.” He took a step closer, slipping the book into his satchel once more. “But it is not enough for you, is it?”

“Jon,” Martin said, placing a hand upon Jon’s upper arm and holding it firm. “I do not think this is wise.”

The man’s eyes grew piercing, the gold of his tunic mirrored within his pupils for a fleeting moment. “You are a servant of knowledge, then,” he said, as if the fact were written plain as day in the air between them. “From the Magnus Court, I may presume?”

“That is correct,” Jon said, but he did not pull away from Martin’s hand, for which Martin was grateful. “I am a collector of stories, both the written and the spoken. And I can sense one within you — one steeped in nameless faces and stolen skins.”

“And you would claim it for your own,” the man said, his voice hard as stone and flattened by a heavy hand.

“Jon,” Martin said again. 

“If you would let me,” Jon said, his voice soft and controlled. Martin knew that beneath the control, there lay a swarm of questions and compulsions so thick as to be stifling, and he knew the effort it required to keep them hidden. And Jon was doing it. Because Martin had asked.

The man studied Jon for a long while, as the hum of insects and chittering of fauna filled the silence between them. When he spoke, it was neither a refusal nor an acquiescence, but something that hung in the air with a lingering  _ maybe, _ a future yet unknown but hazy between them, half-formed.

“My name is Prince Timothy of the House of Stoker. And if you would have the patience to begin to learn me the traditional way, perhaps you might accompany me to the palace?”

He spoke to Jon, extended his hand to Martin. And their journey through the woods was rich with stories indeed — stories of childhoods spend scaling trees and pit fruits painting fingers sticky with juice and festivals of dancing lights and fiddle music. They were the kinds of stories that did not fill the pages of a leather-bound book, were not immortalized within a library or considered worthy tales for a passing stranger. 

But they were quite lovely indeed.

* * *

Tim did not take Sasha to the palace.

Instead, he followed a path that wound and snaked and jumped and crawled and led them to a village, not small by any right but quaint in the way the smoke curled from the chimney stacks of the homes or in the way that windows and doors were left open, privacy giving way to conversation and community. Within that village lay a library, set into a hill and paved of smooth grey stone, with wooden doors that remained shut but contained cut-out windows that allowed light to stream into the space within, for the aid of wandering eyes. It was filled with books of all genres, ages, and proclivities, for its owners did not discriminate in the knowledge they collected, deeming all to be worthy of immortalization and reverence. Though the head librarian traveled frequently and far, accumulating stories from the far reaches of the fourteen kingdoms (and often suffering for his efforts), he would always return, a moth drawn to a flickering flame.

And within the library he sat now, book spread wide across his lap and world-worn fingers tracing the words with quiet reverence. He was thin, but not frail, his legs familiar with the strain of many days spent on foot, and his skin bore the marks of many trials endured, puckered and raised atop sepia-brown skin. His hair ran thick with grey, long and knotted along the curve of his spine, and it was oft laced with threads of gold and silver or with fine glass beads and sea-worn shells or (as it was that day) with ivy vines and delicate wildflowers. 

Tim felt adoration swell within him at the sight, so thick he felt he might not find the ability to breathe around the obstruction. And so he let Sasha’s hand fall away, after the briefest of reassuring pressures, and approached his love with warmth setting his heart and face alight in kind. “I do think,” Tim said, finding no small amount of pleasure in the way that the words made his love startle free from his tome, “that yellow is quite a lovely color on you, Jon.” His hand found one of the blossoms, tucked against the crown of Jon’s head, and extracted it deftly, turning the stem between his fingers gently. “Were these flowers your design, or Martin’s?”

Jon, having decided that a fond smile outweighed a scowl of annoyance at the disruption, said, “I believe the answer to that is obvious.”

Tim laughed, a light and airy noise. “I have missed you terribly,” he said, knowing it to sound unbearably fond but not able to muster the energy to mind.

Jon’s hands found Tim’s, their fingers lacing in a practiced and comfortable motion. “As have I. And as has Martin, I am sure. He’s gone to the market to retrieve supplies, but I am certain he will not be much longer.” Jon’s eyes slid from Tim’s face to the space behind him, and he said, with no small amount of curiosity, “You have brought a guest. An…  _ interesting _ guest.”

Tim could see anticipation within Jon’s eyes, the promise of a story glittering sharp and wanting within them, but he said nothing more on the matter, simply listening as Sasha took a step closer and said, “Forgive me for the unexpected intrusion. I am… I am Sasha. I have been traveling with Tim, though not for long, and it is my utmost pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Her voice was light, that of a diplomat, and told a half-truth. This Tim knew, and his chest grew tight in anticipation. For he also knew acutely that Jon did not deal in half-truths, and that he could not stop himself from asking a question once it had come across his mind.

So it was of no surprise when Jon said, lightly, “Modesty is an admirable trait, my princess, but wholly unnecessary in this place. Truth, honesty, and knowledge — those are my tenants, and not much else. You do not need to tell me your story if you do not wish, but I ask that any truths be complete and whole, without distortion or deception.”

Sasha’s eyes, grey as curling smoke and shifting storm clouds, widened only slightly before cutting into Jon with an intensity that would have sent gooseflesh skittering along Tim’s skin. There was a moment of silence between them, and Tim found that he felt within it no discomfort — only anticipation. Then, finally, Sasha said, “I find that I have had enough of deception and lies to last a lifetime. But if you would like my story, you will have to earn it. I do not give myself away so easily.”

Jon’s lips twitched up into a smile, a wry kind of thing that made Tim’s chest grow tight with fondness. “Fair enough. Then perhaps you might stay for the evening meal? I find that journeys are best embarked upon with a full stomach and a place to return to at the end.”

Sasha returned his smile, hers as lovely as a rose and just as sharp. “That would be wonderful.”

And when Martin returned, arms laden with root vegetables and smoked game and fresh-baked bread, kisses were shared and introductions were made. The library’s doors were shut as the kitchen filled with the sounds and smells of merriment — laughter and chatter and such other joyous noises. Tim thought himself comfortable with his lovers, with the space they occupied together when they were fortunate enough to do so. The feeling of their fingers beneath his was learned, as was the softness of Martin’s lips underneath his and the weight of Jon’s arms around his waist, and Tim could not think of a happier man in all the fourteen kingdoms than he. Sasha’s hands upon his were not so familiar, felt in passing as bread was broken and wine was shared, and nor was her smile nor her laugh nor the stories she told in sweeping gestures and with eyes alight with a hungry enthusiasm that rivaled Jon’s in power and potency. 

Yet the space she filled felt molded for her, a gap not yet known until it was filled. Martin discussed with her the Northern sea trade and the intricacies of teas (a topic which Tim felt lost within, as he preferred his drinks of the fermented kind). Jon spoke with her of the caves of the Forever Deep and the wastes of the Blackened Earth and the decaying forests of the Crawling Rot, a fervor Tim had not seen within him before speeding his words until they left him at a frightening, tumbling speed that Tim feared might suffocate Sasha entirely but that only seemed to invigorate her, to draw her in closer with a rapt fascination. And Tim found that she could elicit from him the most aching laughter, felt deep within his chest, and that her wit could match his in strength and intensity, and that her skin was soft and warm against his when their hands brushed.

It was late that night, when Sasha admitted that she must make her leave in the morning to return to the Magnus Court and Tim knew that he must do the same to his own kingdom, that Tim felt most acutely the space that Princess Sasha had come to occupy, if only in the suggestion that she should leave it permanently. So, his tongue thick with wine and his heart happy and contented, Tim said with remarkable bluntness, “I would have you back, my lady, if you would be so inclined as to return to me once you are able.”

Sasha’s cheeks were flushed a warm cherry red, and her voice was soft and humored as she said, “Must I warn you once more regarding the manner of my own desire?”

“Please do not misunderstand me,” Tim hastened to say. “I do not wish for your hand in romance, nor for your continued engagement in any way that does not please you so. And I cannot speak for the hearts and minds of my loves, but I would like to make good on that which I said on our journey. I have found great pleasure in your company, Sasha of the Magnus Court, and I would find no greater joy than to spend my time continuing to do so, in whichever way you desire.”

Sasha opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed it once more. Her eyes traced the lines of Tim’s face, the gentle curve of Martin’s shoulders underneath the spotted pelt he wore across them, the thin fingers of Jon’s hands where one laced with Martin’s and the other held aloft an empty wine chalice. “You mean this,” she said, in a tone that did not imply questioning. “You would really have me, after so short an acquaintance, in whichever manner I am able to give.”

“Of course,” Martin said, his mouth curved into a smile and his words steady and uninhibited by the drink. “The time spent is not so important as how it is shared, and I have not met another who can discuss the proper methods of meal preparation at length without tiring.”

“And a relationship need not meet an arbitrary standard of affection, desire, or touch for it to have value and worth,” Jon said, his fingers tightening around Martin’s as he spoke.

“In short,” Tim said, reaching across the space between them and taking Sasha’s hand between his, “I have nary meant anything more truthfully nor more ardently than the words I have spoken to you just now. You need not answer immediately, as I understand that your obligations take you elsewhere when the sun rises tomorrow. But there is a home for you here, with us, should you desire it.”

Sasha’s face broke open then into a smile, tentative in its birth and accompanied by eyes that glistened with unshed tears of hope and joy, and her fingers fit well enough between Tim’s when she clasped his hand within hers and squeezed it tight. “I do desire,” she said, with a quiet reverence. “I do desire, indeed.”

And when Sasha left at morning light for the halls of the Magnus Court, and Tim shortly after on the back of his steed for a kingdom that required him, they left behind them two spaces molded into their shapes, waiting with gentle patience for them to return home once again.

**Author's Note:**

> [mythology of the lynx!](https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Lynx)
> 
> comments and kudos make my day! if you liked what you read, let me know 💛
> 
> find me on tumblr [@bluejayblueskies](https://bluejayblueskies.tumblr.com/)


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